A Changed India Wants Heroism Not Sainthood
The Quad is real even as it evolves more and more into a
military alliance. It is no longer shy of its intent to check China. Not only
is Biden’s America staying the course set by predecessor Trump, but in addition
to the four already on board, Britain and France also want to do their bit in
the Indian Ocean and beyond. Russia is standing alone in partial neutrality in
the waters of the Asia-Pacific, but clearly not willing to throw in its entire
lot with the Chinese either.
Member Australia used its Quad linkage most recently to
push back against Facebook and Google by calling on India for solidarity. India’s
own face-off with Twitter a few days prior met with signal success. If internet merchant warriors who claim to be
global and yet of no fixed address for billing and taxation purposes, are en
route to being tamed, can a puffed-up (on hubris) communist China be far
behind?
Extensive Covid vaccine diplomacy, plus the way India has
handled the pandemic despite being a populous 1.35 billion has impressed. India
is on its way to becoming the premier pharmacy to the world.
China could not get the better of India in Eastern Ladakh
despite its mad muscle-flexing over half a year. Its iron-clad ally’s
aggression and its terrorism, is now more or less old hat, despite the
attrition and expense involved.
Aware of the relentless threat on its borders and on the
seas,India is now seriously getting on with the building of guns, tanks,
howitzers, aircraft, ships, submarines, ammunition and drones on home turf.
This even as it is buying armaments furiously from France, Israel, the US and
Russia to address the immediate situation. The real battle is for pre-eminence.
India is determined to acquit itself seriously as the No. 3 global power as
soon as possible, China notwithstanding.
India has come a long way in its economic thinking as
well. In a post Covid world with shattered economies everywhere, bold
strategies were called for. It is now declared public policy to dismantle the
public sector except in a few core areas. Ditto the plethora of public sector
banks which will be reduced to just four or so. The Indian Railways and their
stations are being transformed. Expectation of double-digit GDP growth have
resurfaced.
The government has emphasised
the role of the private sector as essential partners to progress. It has
explicitly commented against the limitations of big government and a
stultifying permanent bureaucracy not inclined to disturb the status quo.
This is the new template set for the third decade of the
21st century. It is a firm departure from the shibboleths of the
past. Nothing, except misadventure, can prevent India from making stellar
progress now. In addition, there is a strong emphasis on infrastructure modernisation,
bold reform of land, labour, industry and agriculture, and a new kind of
atmanirbhar that is both pragmatic and liberating.
All this is also backed by strong FDI inflows and nearly
$600 billion in foreign currency reserves. This is heading towards $ 1 trillion
and more in the next decade.
Today’s BJP is fusing together the threads of a scattered
identity, even as it decisively sheds ideas that were never conducive to India’s
future. Contrast these new realities
with the sheet anchors from the 1940s and onwards.
A khadi-clad
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who drank a lot of goat milk provided by his pet
goat, wrote that India lives in its villages. He advocated a quaint village
economy and cottage industry as the great desirable after independence. His
ideas were, of course, roundly ignored by India’s first prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru, beyond some reverential tokenism. But the reverence and
affection his name invoked amongst the masses, is still used extensively by the
political classes to this day.
Nehru, A fifties style Laskian socialist, set about
establishing smoke-stack heavy industry. He placed it firmly in the state-owned
public sector, and governed via Soviet-style five-year plans. Plans, like in
the USSR, that were rarely met in the execution.
Yoked to Nehru, but for a brief two years after 1947, was
Sardar Patel. He was a conservative politically, and may have guided India to a
more pragmatic future. But alas, after stitching together the princely states
into a country, Patel had neither the time left, nor did he enjoy the unstinted
support of MK Gandhi.
That both Gandhi and Patel sprang free of the mortal coil
so soon after independence was to Nehru’s singular advantage. He could proceed
over the next decade and a half to leave his imprint on all that was to follow.
Jack-booted Subhas Bose, whose time upon the great stage
of events preceded the nation’s formal emergence into independence, also
thought differently. He saw a great, inclusive, and dynamic nation in the
making, fit and able to take on the colonial overlords. But his was a muscular
vision of courage, military action in alliance with the Axis Powers, and
discipline. Even earlier formative ideas saw Bose pushed out of the Congress
Party. If Bose had an ideological
predecessor, it was probably Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Both were not working for a
Hindu Rashtra, but neither did they contemplate the Nehruvian brand of
secularism to come.
Then there was the much vilified and persecuted Veer
Savarkar, who not only wanted the British gone, but India to adopt a clear-cut
Hindu identity. Alongside, there was Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a kindred spirit
from the Hindu Mahasabha, whose heroic actions saved West Bengal from going to
Pakistan. Mookerjee also chalked out the way ahead for an undivided Jammu &
Kashmir as an integral part of India. Despite walking the earth for a mere 53
years, Mookerjee not only served in and quit Nehru’s cabinet, he also
established the Jan Sangh, that later morphed into the BJP.
Cut to the present day and the most profound difference is
in the change in the thinking of the vast majority. It has seen Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s popularity rarely dipping below 70%, and the BJP/NDA winning a
clear majority in parliament in every national poll commissioned periodically
by private TV news channels. This, even after six years of continuous governance
through challenging times.
Nehruvian secularism seems to have run its course in the
popular psyche except in the minds of those who have lost power and position. It is seen to have given rise to a stridency
amongst the largest minority, at over 14% now. This community is now openly
demanding cleansing of their majority enclaves of all others and the imposition
of exclusive sharia practices. This kind of behaviour, seen as rank ingratitude,
has annoyed and polarised the majority, hard-pressed to keep their identity and
beliefs intact. That the minorities have been supported wrong-or-right not only
by the Congress Party, but others with similar views such as the TMC, has
further aggravated the schism. It has distanced the majority from all those who
profess to uphold the Nehruvian ‘Idea of India’.
Prime Minister Modi’s call for ‘A New India’, essentially
a call for modernisation of the country’s facilities, practices, and
infrastructure, and economic upliftment for all, is seen as a powerful and
necessary alternative. It does not carry the baggage of the Nehruvian notions.
This, even as the BJP is remarkably ambivalent on
abandoning the minorities to the sections of the Opposition that depend almost
exclusively on their votes. Prime Minister Modi, flying in the face of unchanged voting patterns in successive
elections, seems to believe in his his ‘Sabka Vikas’ plank.
However, the Congress Party and the TMC paint the BJP as a
communal, Hindu nationalist party. This is more commonly accepted by communists,
the left-liberals, elements opposed to the BJP, at home and abroad.
However, none of this cauldron bubbling and name-calling
is turning the rulers towards abject apologia. The BJP election machinery is
forging ahead collecting states that have long been opposed to it. West Bengal
may well be the next big prize to fall in.
The government and the voting Indian public are no longer
interested in the dubious benefits of moral victories. Even our international cricket, wrestling, badminton,
hockey, shooting and sometimes tennis, has changed in attitude. We play to win.
Today, it is the heroism and derring-do of the IAF at
Balakot. And the bravery and effectiveness of the Indian Army at Galwan. And on
the Chushul heights overlooking China’s Moldo garrison. These are much more
potent symbols of who we are, and where we are going.
(1,412 words)
For: SIRFNEWS
February 21st 2021
Gautam Mukherjee
